A Morning Routine for Kids: The Morning High Five
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If you’re looking for a little more calm in your mornings as you and your kids get ready for the day, then give your kids a high five. This morning routine is adaptable for every kid and every household.
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Mornings can feel wild as you wake your children and get them ready for the day. Maybe the baby kept you up in the night and you’re dragging. So are the kids.
You want them to get good sleep, but you also want the day to go smoothly. How do you set a plan in action for everyone?
Parenting six children I learned early that I had to be intentional about our morning routine, but that I also had to be realistic. I couldn’t expect my two year old to be able to do the things my tweens could do.
At the same time, I wanted something simple that could scale to suit everyone in the family. I landed on the Morning High Five and you’re going to love it!
Bonus: this is a morning routine that works for moms, too.
What is the Morning High Five?
The Morning High Five is a solid morning routine for everyone in the family. It’s sustainable and adaptable for every season in life.
Bonus: it can help keep your kids’ moods — and your own — on an even keel because it starts your day with some known quantities.
What to include in a morning routine for kids
No one wants to face the day with a long to-do list. Not parents, not kids.
By choosing five tasks, you can easily count them on one hand and can celebrate with your kids each morning with a physical high five.
So, consider what five things you want your kids to accomplish at the start of the day. This means that you will need to prioritize for the benefit of yourself and your little ones.
Some sample tasks to include in your kids’ morning routine might include:
- make bed – there’s a solid case for making the bed and better mental health outcomes
- brush teeth/floss
- get dressed
- put away pajamas
- eat breakfast
- get ready for school
- specific chores – at our house this is a simple kitchen chore like unloading the dishwasher or helping to clean up breakfast
When to give your kids a morning routine
We started each of our kids on a morning routine at about the age that they could walk. They may need help from you or an older sibling, but establishing routines is a great step toward good habits, better productivity, and better mental health outcomes long term.
Be sure to adjust the morning routine for the age and capabilities of your children, but please remember that many kids are capable of far more than you think they are.
How to teach your kids a morning routine
Use both visual and verbal cues to help your kids learn the habit of a morning routine.
Visually, it helps to give each kid his or her own chart of their Morning High Five.
You can make one by tracing your child’s hand on construction paper or just grab this free printable. Just drop your email address below to get instant access to our free printables library.
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Tack the charts in your kids’ rooms or somewhere they can easily see them at eye level. Consider using pictures instead of words for your nonreaders.
Then, every day until forever (or until it’s become habit), encourage your kids upon waking to do their morning high five. You may need to use clever persuasion by offering the occasional race to finish the morning routing or even leaving breafast as the last task and make something yummy, like pancakes, to entice cooperation.
But, at the bottom line, expect that your kids will complete their morning routine each morning. Most kids, provided you don’t budge, will rise to the occasion.
This basic list of five tasks helps us get a good start on the day. It’s not all that our kids do for chores, but it’s an easy bare minimum and this morning routine helps us get the day rolling in a positive way.
More Tips for Parenting
What do you think?
I’d be honored if you chimed in the comments section. What do you think?
This post was originally published on September 13, 2010. It has been updated for content and clarity.
We do this too! It’s so hard to get them working in the morning but when they do it sets the tone for the rest of the day! We do incentives and a chore chart and the sooner they get finished the sooner they can do what they want to do.
This. Is. Awesome!
Way more efficient than updating am chore charts for multiple young kids!
Thanks! xox
Hi! I LOVE this! My husband & I are working on a responsibility chart for our 6 yr. old and this will be wonderful for the morning routine.
However, you mentioned it can be customized but, I can’t seem to figure that part out. Like her Daddy, my daughter needs to eat as soon as she wakes up and then make her bed, get dressed etc. So I just want to change the order up a bit. Please let me know asap so we can start using this soon. 🙂 Thanks SO much for sharing!
The customizable version is in my ebook, Organizing Life as MOM.
This is a great idea! I was looking for something to help my godson (just turned 7) & god-daughter(1.5) who will undoubtedly have the task of “helping mommy”-my sis, along.
For motivation, one of my other god-children loves stickers! So, I think I’ll suggest it to my sis and to the reader above who wanted something for motivation. Another thing, what about re-arranging the 3-yr old’s tasks so breakfast comes first, then naturally he’ll get a sticker and be motivated to earn another 1-2 for now cleaning his dirty hands, teeth, etc and getting dressed. One thing I have found useful is doing things ‘alongside’ the one you are trying to motivate (kids, husband, etc) really helps with motivating them (parallel play).
Life is grand!
So, my 3 year old needs this Morning High Five but I can’t seem to get him to do those things. Any ideas for how to motivate? So far stickers work ok and timers just frustrate him, but I expect him to get things done reasonably. We waste a whole morning just reminding him to keep moving along with his chores. I want to homeschool preschool with him, but I’m so frustrated that he can’t get these simple chores done. Here’s my breakdown: use bathroom and dressed (10 min), breakfast (30 min), bathroom- wash face and hands (10 min). However, I can’t get him going on chore #1. He will drag this out into 2 hours if I let him. Help!
I think it depends on if he’s a young 3 or an old 3. My daughter is 3 1/2 and I don’t think she could be delegated to do those things. She can do them with reminders and with me sitting alongside her doing things.
He’ll be 3.5 at the end of May, but right after he turned 3 he was doing all these things, but now that it’s his job to do it by himself which he was doing very well, all of a sudden, he will do nothing that I say. I made the hand chart and that is helping a little. He is just a tough, stubborn and very smart kid! I have my hands full. I’m glad God only gave me 2 because it is more than I can handle some days. Routines take up almost our entire day!
I love your morning high-five idea. I’ve started using it for my 3 kids and they LOVE it. Thanks for sharing such a great idea!
So, I still love this one! I have just referred some friends to you once again, because the morning high five has saved my sanity!! Our kids still love the concept (if not the chores), and it gets our famiy on the move every morning.
Thanks!